


did i ever tell you about that time i went backpacking across western europe?

by cas_makes_me_very_happy



Series: A.V.E.N.G.E.R.S [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: A.V.E.N.G.E.R.S, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arguing, Domestic Avengers, Established Relationship, F.r.i.e.n.d.s - Freeform, Fluff, Friends AU, Friendship, Humor, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Sass, bucky barnes has been flirting with steve for 70 years, i guess, idk just give it a go, idk what to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 06:49:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18516133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cas_makes_me_very_happy/pseuds/cas_makes_me_very_happy
Summary: Steve and Bucky (and various assembled Avengers) deduce who came onto who first. the answer may surprise you (or not)





	did i ever tell you about that time i went backpacking across western europe?

**Author's Note:**

> more Friends plagiarism! - the One With the Videotape
> 
> i'M FREAKING OUT ABOUT eNDGAME SO i'M WRITING A BUNCH OF THESE TO STAY SANE  
> i DON'T KNOW IF IT'S WORKING

Because Tony was Tony, of course he had to throw a party when Steve and Bucky finally officially admitted they were together. Because Tony was Tony, Pepper had to talk him down from sending out actual invitations to everyone they knew.

In the end, it was just the usual gang assembled on the entertainment floor, and everyone was taking full advantage of the bar.

Steve and Bucky showed up late, to a chorus of jeers and winking. It was bearable for a while, until the questions started.

“So, how did this happen?” Sam asked, gesturing between the two of them with his bottle. “When did it happen? How many times?”

Steve rolled his eyes.

“Wilson, that’s not right,” Tony said, to the surprise of everyone. Then he grinned. “Start with where.”

“I’m not going to fuel your childish behaviours,” Steve said, making a tactic retreat for the bar.

Bucky watched him go, then exclaimed, “I will!”

“Good man.” Clint tossed him a beer.

Bucky caught it and opened it one-metal-handed. He flopped onto the couch and everyone hustled to gather round, like story time in front of a camp fire. If the camp fire was a coffee table littered with beer bottles and pizza boxes, and story time was how Steve and Bucky started boning.

“So, it was about six weeks ago,” Bucky said. “I’d gone down to the gym and Steve was already down there. I think he’d been training with Clint.”

“You’re welcome,” Clint said, raising his bottle to Steve and winking.

Steve closed his eyes briefly. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“Anyway, I was in a punching kinda mood, so Steve offered to train more with me even though he’d finished.” Bucky shot Steve a grateful smile. “So we go a couple of rounds, talking shit like usual, and then the next thing you know, out of nowhere, Steve comes onto me.”

On cue, everyone gathered gasped.

“Uh,” Steve said, “ _what?_ ”

“What?” Bucky retorted.

“I think that’s a little misleading,” Steve said.

Bucky frowned. “What is?”

“The lie you just told just now.”

“That you came onto me?”

“That’s the one.”

“But you did.”

Everyone’s heads were snapping back and forth between the two. Wanda had levitated a bowl of chips over and she and Natasha were munching on it, intent on the argument.

“No, I didn’t,” Steve said.

“Steve,” Bucky said, “let’s be honest.”

“Yes, let’s!” Steve agreed. Bucky narrowed his eyes, clearly pissed he was being called a liar. Steve sighed. “Look, it doesn’t matter. What’s important is that we’re together, and we’re happy. It doesn’t matter who came onto who.”

“ _Whom_ ,” Clint said. Everyone looked at him. Tony’s eyebrow rose so high it was in danger of breaking free of his face. Clint looked smug. “That’s right.”

“You know you kissed me first,” Bucky said, moving back to the more important topic.

“What?” Steve said. “ _What?_ You were practically begging me to kiss you. You were sending me signals all over the place!”

“ _I_ was sending _you_ signals?”

“Yes!”

“Oh, please.” Bucky looked around the assembled group. “Does anyone in this room actually think I would beg? Show of hands, please.”

Steve’s hand shot straight into the air. The others all glanced awkwardly at each other. Clint began to raise his but Bucky glared it back down.

“I dunno, man,” Sam said, shrugging. “Kinda sounded like you were begging last night.”

Bucky turned the glare on him.

Steve dropped his hand. “You know what, it doesn’t matter what everyone thinks. What matters is what happened.”

“And what happened is you came onto me first,” Bucky said.

“Look, I wasn’t going to mention it, but you do have a history with memory.”

“Hey!” Bucky exclaimed. “Don’t blame my memory. It’s perfectly fine these days. Yours must being going downhill in your old age.”

Steve paused for a minute, then, “You’re older than me!”

Bucky gasped, a hand to his chest.

“Uh, fellas?” Tony said. “JARVIS probably has footage.”

They both spun to him with the same expressions of horror. “WHAT?”

“Yeah, he records all the communal areas,” Tony explained, not looking guilty in the slightest. “Security in a tower full of superheroes, you know.”

“I mean, that would’ve been nice to know,” Sam muttered. “Maybe put it on the lease that our every move is being recorded.”

“It is on the lease.”

“I was being sarcastic. We didn’t sign a damn lease.”

“Does it record in the elevator?” Clint asked suddenly.

Everyone looked at him. Tony said, “Yeah. Why?”

“No reason,” Clint said, like there was a really big reason. Natasha smirked, like she knew.

“We’re not watching that footage,” Bucky said, standing. “JARVIS, delete–”

He didn’t even finish the word before everyone else was on their feet, shouting a protest.

“What?” Bucky said.

Everyone just yelled in gibberish again.

Bucky leaned back and narrowed his eyes, his arms over his chest. “You don’t want to watch it, do you?”

“Hell yeah, we do,” Sam said.

“I’m not gonna let you watch us having sex.”

“We don’t want to see the sex part,” Natasha assured him. “Just the stuff leading up to it.”

Bucky didn’t look impressed.

“Forget it, guys,” Steve said. “Let him have JARVIS delete it.”

“Fine,” Natasha said, smiling sweetly. “We’ll just have to come up with some other way to solve who came onto who first.” She tapped a finger to her chin thoughtfully.

“Leave it, Nat, okay?” Steve said. “It’s up to Bucky what happens to the footage, and he wants to delete it. So, let’s just delete it and forget about it.”

“I wanna see it,” Bucky said suddenly.

Steve turned to him. “What?”

“I want to see it,” he enunciated. “Clearly, you don’t want people to see this footage. Now, I don’t want people to see this footage either, but you so badly don’t want people to see it that it makes me want to see it, do you see?”

Steve stared at him.

From the couch, Clint yelled, “Are we watching the footage or not?”

“I don’t want people to see it for _your_ sake,” Steve said to Bucky.

“Ah,” Bucky said. “Now _I_ don’t believe _you_.” Steve gave him an exasperated look, which Bucky had decades of practice ignoring. “I just don’t think you want them to see you begging _me_.”

Steve sighed. “Fine. Fine. But let’s just remember that I tried to be the good guy here, because in about five minutes I definitely will be saying HA!”

They sized each other up, as though they didn’t feed off each other’s stubbornness and one of them would actually crack.

“Play the footage,” Bucky said daringly.

Steve raised his hands, surrendering blame.

“JARVIS, roll footage!” Tony shouted gleefully.

JARVIS brought the recording up on the screen and Bucky hurried to sit on the sofa beside Sam. Steve stood to one side, arms crossed, looking both amused and irritated.

“Here we go,” Bucky said, as the lights dimmed and footage of the gym appeared, time-stamped from six weeks ago.

“I’m so happy,” Sam said.

On screen, Clint and Steve were finishing up from what looked like some hand-to-hand training. Clint was limping a little, a bruise forming beneath his left eye.

“ _I’m still not really sure how you managed to punch yourself in the face,_ ” Steve said.

“That’s how you got that black eye?” Natasha exclaimed while Sam and Tony sniggered. “You said it was vigilantes!”

“Yeah,” Clint said. “ _I’m_ a vigilante.”

“Guys, please,” Bucky said, gesturing to the screen.

Everyone shut up. On-screen Clint left, leaving Steve alone in the gym. He started working on one of the punching bags, singing ‘American Idiot’ loudly. Steve in gym clothes was a blessing. Steve’s singing was not.

“Ooh, there I am,” Bucky said, as he appeared on screen. He wandered into the gym, clearly looking for something or someone, and paused for a moment when he saw Steve at the punching bag. It was totally obvious he was checking out Steve’s ass, because so was everyone watching the footage.

“God bless America,” Natasha and Sam said at the same time.

“Shhhhh,” Bucky hissed.

Steve must’ve sensed someone else was there, because he – thankfully – stopped singing and turned around. He smiled when he caught sight of Bucky. “ _Hey, Buck_.”

“ _Rogers_ ,” Bucky greeted, wandering further into the gym. “ _You feel like going a round?_ ”

“ _I actually just did with Clint_.”

“ _Can’t have really been a workout, then_.”

“Hey!” Clint said.

“Sorry,” Bucky muttered, not sounding very sorry.

On-screen Steve just shrugged, smiling. “ _Suppose I could go again and still kick your ass_.”

Bucky not-so-subtlety stretched, a grin flashing across his face. “ _Bring it on_.”

Everyone had seen Bucky and Steve fight before, both together and against each other, but it was strangely mesmerising. For two massive guys, they were unfairly graceful. They were also pretty evenly matched and were so in sync with each other’s fighting that it seemed impossible for one to get the advantage on the other. Judging by their constant smiles, though, they didn’t seem to mind.

“Is this foreplay for super soldiers?” Tony asked after Steve had pinned Bucky for the second time.

“JARVIS, can you fast forward this part?” Steve said.

“Don’t want them to see you lose, either?” Bucky asked as their fight sped up. Steve just rolled his eyes.

“If this is going where I think it’s going, I don’t think he lost,” Sam said.

“Wait, did you have sex in my gym?” Tony asked.

Steve and Bucky winced.

The footage resumed playing normally. Steve and Bucky seemed to have finished throwing each other around.

“ _Hey, Steve?_ ” Bucky said as they towelled off.

“ _Yeah?_ ”

“ _You remember my last night in Brooklyn?_ ”

Steve frowned. Concern and hope battled for control of his facial expressions, as they usually did whenever Bucky brought up memories or lack-thereof. “ _Yeah, of course, Buck. Thought I wasn’t ever gonna see you again_. _Why?_ ”

“ _You remember how we almost…_ _?_ ” Bucky started to ask, then trailed off. Everyone watching sorta glanced at each other.

“ _Yeah,_ ” Steve said. “ _Yeah, I remember how we almost._ ”

“Almost _whaaaaat?_ ” Natasha sung, earning herself a look of patriotic exasperation at its finest.

On-screen Bucky was fiddling with the towel in his hands. “ _Do you think we woulda done it? You know, if we hadn’t been interrupted._ ”

“ _I dunno_ ,” Steve said. Then, always one for honesty, added, “ _I know I wanted to. I wasn’t sure if it was because it was your last night or not,_ _but I wanted to_ _._ _Did you?_ ”

“ _I wanted to_ ,” Bucky said.

“Gay,” Clint said.

“ _So we both wanted to_ ,” said Captain Obvious.

The Bucky and Steve on screen were staring. Bucky said, “ _Interesting_.”

Steve was the first to look away, turning to hang his towel back up. “ _It probably worked out for the best that we… didn’t_.”

“ _Oh, sure. Sure_ ,” Bucky agreed, so totally convincingly that Sam snorted into his beer.

“Okay,” Bucky said. “In about ten seconds, you’re gonna see Steve totally make a move.”

“And in about five seconds,” Steve said, “you’re going to see why.”

On-screen Steve had just taken a drink from his water bottle and Bucky was staring at him like he was dying of thirst.

“ _Hey_ ,” Bucky said, “ _did I ever tell you about that time I went backpacking across Western Europe_ _?_ ”

Everyone turned to stare from on-screen Bucky to IRL Bucky. There was some jaw dropping. Steve looked smug.

Bucky didn’t even notice. “Okay. Get ready to see some begging.”

“You came onto Steve!” Sam exclaimed.

“What?”

“Now _I’m_ so happy,” Steve said.

“What are you talking about?” Bucky demanded.

“You used the Europe story,” Sam said.

“That’s the magic story you use when you wanna have sex!” Clint said.

“Bruce has used it on me at least three times,” Natasha added.

“I think I used it on Pepper,” Tony said. Then, “I don’t know why she’s with me.”

“Even I’ve used it,” Wanda said.

“How do you guys know about that story?” Bucky exclaimed, not even trying to deny he’d used a line. “I came up with that story.”

“What?” Sam said. “No you didn’t.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s been around forever,” Tony said.

Then everyone went, “Oh.”

“You actually came up with a pick-up line that literally everyone, even Steve, has heard of?” Natasha said.

“Why’d you say ‘even Steve’ like that?” Steve asked. Natasha just smiled at him.

“Wow, does that mean Bucky’s famous?” Clint said, momentarily forgetting the whole fallen war hero thing.

Bucky was still reeling from finding out everyone knew about his supposedly unique pick-up line. And being caught out. “So people know about the backpacking story?” Bucky muttered, sounding bitter.

Steve, as always, took pity. “Look, it doesn’t matter who came onto who,” he said. “It was bound to happen eventually, and I know I would have initiated even if you hadn’t. I’m just glad it didn’t take another seventy years.”

Bucky gave him a grateful smile.

“That’s cute and all, but you guys might wanna pause this,” Natasha said conversationally, gesturing to where the footage was still playing. “Things are starting to get a little naked.”

Steve and Bucky both dove in front of the screen, but not before everyone saw Steve pin Bucky to the gym floor again.

 

–

 

**Author's Note:**

> “Hey, do you want to watch it?” Natasha asked, when it was just her and Sam left (Tony was also there, but he was passed out on the other sofa).
> 
> “What, seriously?” Sam asked.
> 
> “Yeah.”
> 
> “I don’t know if he’d want us to see it.”
> 
> Natasha grinned. “Which is exactly why we should.” Sam looked a little guilty but he didn’t outrightly say no, so Natasha said, “JARVIS, if you will.”
> 
> The choreography was perfect. Clint dancing in an elevator to Britney Spears’ ‘Womaniser’ was even better than super soldier sex.


End file.
